Reconstruction Era National Historical Park

Abraham Jackson

Abraham Lincoln

Abram Allston

Alfred Gourdine

Annie White

Charles Chisolm

Charlotte Forten Grimké

Clara Jones

During the Civil War, tax auctions of abandoned properties on the Sea Islands around Beaufort were an important part of the Port Royal Experiment. Beginning in 1863, these tax auctions helped facilitate the redistribution of property and paved the way for generations of Black land ownership on the coast of South Carolina.

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first regiment of African Americans from the North to serve during the Civil War, bravely assaulted Battery Wagner in Charleston Harbor. Their bravery increased Northern efforts to enlist African Americans. By war's end, over 180,000 African Americans fought in the US Army, roughly 10% of the fighting men.

This poem is part of a series by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island, SC. "A Cup of Cold Water" was first published in Our Daily Fare on June 16, 1864.

Prior to the 1830s, American antislavery organizations were formed and controlled by white men. This changed in December of 1833 when African American men were invited to participate at the first convention of the American Anti-Slavery Slavery Society (AASS) held in Philadelphia. Some women were also invited to the convention, but as spectators rather than as members. Excluding women from full participation was customary of the period’s social conventions.

Some abolitionist women found the confidence needed to reject social conventions and participate in public activities by denying the authority of clerical rules. Abolitionist feminists also found resolve to contradict gender roles in the abolitionist belief of the common humanity of all people. The belief in common humanity was used by abolitionists to argue for the definition of African American slaves as people, not property.

The abolition movement helped form and influence those who built and led the women’s rights movement. The beliefs and practices of the abolition movement provided a backdrop against which antislavery women could challenge gender roles and leave the woman’s sphere to enter the public sphere.

The abolition movement was one of the leading factors in the formation of the 19th century women’s rights movement. This series explores the connections between the abolition movement and the women’s rights movement to reveal the relationship between the two campaigns.

The establishment of Female Anti-Slavery Societies in the 1830s facilitated the formal beginnings of women’s political participation in the abolitionist movement. One women’s antislavery society that formed in the wake of the first American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) convention was the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS). The AASS organized itself as an interracial organization, and PFASS was founded in the same manner.